Arguably, any coach or manager could get lucky and win a championship, even if he wasn’t very good at his job. But when a guy wins multiple championships, people usually take a second look, and may conclude, “He WAS a better coac hthan we realized at the time.”
But there are a few guys I can think of who’ve won multiple world championships and STILL don’t command tremendous respect.
MLB
Ralph Houk
Cito Gaston
NFL
Tom Flores
Tom Coughlin
George Seifert
NBA
Rudy Tomjanovich
Greg Popovich
Who else can you think of?
And do you think these guys are great coaches who don’t get enough credit? Or are they just lucky stiffs who happened to be handed extremely talented teams?
Gregg Popovich commands tremendous respect in the NBA. I don’t think he belongs on this list at all, since he’s been an excellent coach for 15 years and is definitely a Hall of Famer.
Anyone who follows the NBA at all regards Popvich as a genius. Many people talk about him and Phil Jackson in the same breath well ahead of the Rileys and Nelsons of the world.
Maybe you need to fit a pre-determined personality to get the kind of following that lands you in the HOF. Examples: the Fearless Leader, the Tyrant, the Strategist, the Down-Home Guy, the Grizzled Veteran, etc.
Not that sports fans should start thinking on a metalevel about the human side of the game. It might start to look like Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots, a series of interchangeable personalities interrupted by the odd Character (eg: Billy Martin).
I’ll see your Shannahan and raise you a George Seifert.
In the NBA, I’d say Rudy T fits the bill rather well. To a lesser degree Stan Van Gundy. I’d also toss in Tom Thibedeau, the current coach of the Bulls. He was an assistant coach under Doc Rivers when the Celtics won in '08 and deserves a lot of the credit for their historically effective, championship-winning defense that season.
I should have thought of TOm Kelly- excellent answer.
As for Popovich… I’ll concede he’s not quite at the level of a Cito Gaston, but I’d still wager that if you asked 100 random fans to name the best coaches in the NBA, you’d hear a lot of other names before anyone thought of him. Popovich is one of those guys you often have to remind fans off… at which point, they’ll say, “Oh yeah, he’s great, too.”
I’ll agree Popovich doesn’t have the kind of media personality Pat Riley and Phil Jackson did, and he hasn’t even taken his anti-personality to the extremes Bill Belichick has. He also does play in a relatively small media market and his teams have not typically been the most exciting. But he’s won four championships in 15 years and (together with Buford) the Spurs are maybe the most stable and respected organization in the NBA.
I think you might be able to take Tom Coughlin off this list, given he just won his second it is hard to judge at this point how he is considered overall.